Dark Side
by Pafoof
Summary: "Sometimes I wish I could save you And there're so many things that I want you to know I wont give up till it's over If it takes you forever I want you to know That if you fall, stumble down I'll pick you up off the ground If you lose faith in you I'll give you strength to pull through Tell me you won't give up cause I'll be waiting if you fall Oh you know I'll be there for you"


Written for xBlueEyedAngel's The Monthly Characters & Prompt Challenge

I do not own anything Harry Potter related.

**Fear**

Sirius Black was a mystery to mostly everyone. No one knew how he turned his back so completely on his family. No one understood how he could not even talk to them anymore. No one could imagine being that cold. The two brothers now shared the ruling of the school but never spoke, ever. They could run right into each other without even mumbling a simple sorry to one another. It seemed like they weren't related at all.

Sirius slipped away from his friends on the way back from dinner and down a corridor on the second floor. They wouldn't worry, James could guess where he was. He was supposed to be helping James study for the NEWTS coming up next week.. He would do that for sure...after he had a smoke.

Myrtle's bathroom was his regular haunt to feed his bad habit None of teachers ever went in here and neither did the prefects, it was a nearly perfect spot. He turned the old, iron, familiar handle deftly to the left and slipped inside. He bit back a groan upon closing the door behind him, he heard crying. Sirius did not exclusively have this bathroom. The girls often used it for a crying spot after they got cheated on, broken up with, or found out they were pregnant. Sirius normally didn't bother with them but he didn't want any school age grieving girl calling rape on him.(It had happened before) He shuffled over to the source while pulling out his pack of smokes from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He put the cigarette between his lips and was just about to light it with his wand when he went around the last corner and saw who was the sorry sod stuck crying on a damp bathroom floor.

It was Regulus.

Sirius felt his stomach clench and awkwardly glanced at the stick between his lips. He sighed and put it away. Regulus had noticed him and clenched his jaw, determinedly staring at the wall directly across from his eye level. Sirius could leave, the thought enticingly entered his brain but it was his brother and for some reason it mattered now. It mattered when there were tears on his little brother's face and he didn't know who put them there.

"Er, hey Regulus" The name felt completely foreign on his lips and sounded foreign echoing off the walls of the empty bathroom. Regulus nodded and swallowed hard. His throat seemingly too tight to even speak. Sirius sat against the opposite wall and stared at the floor. He still didn't know what to say. He should know but he doesn't.

"They're making me join Sirius," Regulus said in a voice full of tears. "I don't know if I'm ready but they expect me to over the summer. Lucius came up here today to tell me. He didn't even act like ti was an option, just informed me. I can't even think about it. I get that we're better, I agree with that. I don't really like Muggleborns all that much but the things they do...it's extreme." Regulus sniffed hard and silence fell again. Sirius's heart ached for his brother. It was meant to be him joining. If he hadn't been disowned last summer it would be him talking to Lucius. He didn't mean this to fall on Regulus it just did.

"Remember the time that Narcissa bought that dreadful white, fluffy furball? Remember how it used to always attack us if we walked too close to it?" Sirius watched for Regulus's nod and slight smile. Pleased when he got it Sirius continued. "It was an evil little thing and it only liked Narcissa. Aunt Druella and Uncle Cygnus hated it too, they only allowed it because Narcissa was the last in their family to stay home and they thought she missed her sisters. I remember how much you used to rant about that stupid thing and I used to research ways to kill it subtly. You came up with the brilliant idea to shave it. We got it done eventually and Narcissa was so mad at us for such a long time." Sirius stopped speaking when he heard what he wanted to hear. Regulus was laughing and looking at the ceiling with a smile curling the corners of his mouth. Sirius nodded to himself and sat himself next to his brother.

"Sirius, what if I forget all that when I start...being a death eater?" Regulus rested his head on his brother's shoulder.

"That is who you are Regulus Black. It was who you were before the world messed everything up. I know who you are and I will remember for the both of us, I promise." Sirius kissed his brother on the head and headed back to his friends.

**Kill**

It was a year after Sirius had found his brother crying from absolute fear in the bathroom on the second floor of Hogwarts and all pity and affection in that moment were long gone. Regulus was still in this house somewhere, the house that had recently housed the McKinnon family but was now empty, the occupants corpses. Sirius swore as he narrowly dodged a piece of falling burning wood. He carefully maneuvered up the stairs to the second story. He got to the last room on the left before he found what he was looking for. Regulus stood there, breathing heavily with his wand at his side, over a body of a young woman, Marlene's sister probably. Sirius swallowed down the bile and stepped into the room. Regulus started to chuckle as their gazes met over the carnage. Regulus kept shaking his head and he walked over to Sirius, stepping on the tiny hand and breaking at least two fingers. Sirius winced as he heard the tiny bones crack. The smoke was clouding his head and judgment so he didn't move as Regulus continued to get closer so that they were standing nose to nose.

"I finally didn't feel anything," Regulus whispered. His breath smelled of alcohol slightly and Sirius had to struggle to recognize him. "These filthy blood traitors were the first kills I felt nothing for. I finally don't care. They got to me Sirius, I really don't care." Sirius took a sharp breath in and nearly gagged on the ash in the air but his brother's words were unnerving. He was losing his humanity, he was letting them break him. When Regulus whispered the fear of losing his humanity in the bathroom last year, Sirius had always thought he was just being paranoid. He never imagined it would really happen.

"Reg, you do care...you have to" Even as he said it Sirius knew it wasn't necessarily true. Most Death Eaters had that look about them, the look that any ounce of compassion had really left them.

"Now that I have an Auror in front of me, the Dark Lord would be most displeased if he ever knew I just let you get away. I wonder if your death would make me feel again. I wonder if I would cry. Do you think any of us would Sirius? Or do you think that there is just nothing left in us? Nothing left of the family we once knew and loved. It is rather a sad thought but a very close to being true one. Bellatrix would never pick up a book anymore, unless it was a book filled with more spells to fill her poisoned mind and fulfill her Lord's needs. Narcissa spends her time having tea and looking in the mirror to feel like herself since Lucius is not the man she married. She will never paint again, there is no joy left in her either. No love for the arts or love for anything else. Andromeda is lost to all of us, completely cut off. Maybe she is still the cousin we used to know, maybe the world hasn't taken everything from her. " Regulus was breathing heavily onto Sirius face and the grip on his wand grew tighter and Sirius felt his heart beat speed up, wondering if he was in any danger form his brother. He knew that he would never be able to defend himself against the only person in his true family he remotely cared about.

"Regulus, there's still us, we still care for each other and all is not completely lost." Regulus laughed again and raised his wand slightly.

"Us? We have nothing Sirius, ending up on opposite sides of a war. We have no relationship, no inside jokes between and no brotherhood. I bet I would not even feel it if I killed you right now. I could watch you fall to the ground and be consumed in flames. There would be no remorse or compassion." Regulus leaned down and kissed Sirius gently on the mouth before the tip of his wand appeared before Sirius's eyes. " It was nice while it lasted Sirius but we are all lost now, goodbye brother. Avada Kedevra." Sirius heard the whispered incantation and felt his world go black.

**Hold**

Sirius woke to blissful darkness and quiet. The fact that his eyes were open was a miracle. He ached all over but he was alive. Regulus hadn't meant the deadly curse after all. Sirius breathed a sigh of relief and was a little disappointed he was alone. A glance out the window told him it was in the dead of night so it must be that everyone had been here but had gone home for some rest. He couldn't grudge them that, they must have been a bunch of worried messes. A shadow in the corner moved and Sirius felt his whole body tense and couldn't help the moan that escaped his lips at the sudden pain. The shadow quickly stepped towards him and took his hand.

"It's alright it's only me." The sound of his brother's voice didn't comfort Sirius in the slightest and he squirmed to get away from him but couldn't move much. Was Regulus here to simply finish him off? "Siri, don't move, please don't move. You're going to hurt more." Sirius forced himself to stop moving and calmly take a deep breath.

"Why are you here? You tried to kill me." The words hanging in the air between them seemed to just break his little brother. Regulus sniffed hard and Sirius knew he was crying. He didn't want to feel any sort of compassion for someone who tried to kill him. Regulus was a death eater the same as Malfoy, Nott, or Bellatrix. He was not someone to be pitied but Sirius knew how it was to have your greatest fears become real. His remembered sitting on the Potter's couch at sixteen and trying to breathe amidst the panic creeping up on him. He was afraid it would come to this, being disowned. He had no family, no support, and he was leaving school in a little over a year. Regulus was feeling fear greater than he had ever known and regret thicker than he could handle. He reached up, clenching his jaw as his arm muscles protested, and brought his brother's head down to his chest and stroked his hair.

"It's okay Reg, things are messed up but we're okay. I'll always be here for you." Sirius held his little brother as he cried himself to sleep in the dark and quiet room of St. Mungo's.


End file.
